


ian and the terrible horrible no good very bad week

by quantumducky



Series: Hidden Block Crew [1]
Category: Asagao Academy: Normal Boots Club, Hidden Block (Video Blogging RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, M/M, Torture, a shameful disregard for how anything actually works, i dont even know how to specifically tag this its just bad, in every sense, why do i hurt ian so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 03:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10733502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumducky/pseuds/quantumducky
Summary: Sometimes I have a bad day and fuck up a character to make myself feel better. Sometimes it somehow turns into an AU and I end up having to post it to explain some things in what oswiniarty wrote. Enjoy whatever this is, I guess.





	ian and the terrible horrible no good very bad week

**Author's Note:**

> as the summary and tags say, i didnt expect anyone to see this when i wrote it so if something makes no sense im probably aware but i gave up on going through to fix everything lmao i have other things to do with the hours that would take
> 
> i tried so hard to come up with a serious title alright but nothing was as good as this
> 
> i am. so sorry

Ian thinks it’s sort of bullshit that he got kidnapped when he wasn’t even doing anything shady.  He just wanted snacks, dammit.  As soon as he turned the corner after leaving the store someone came up behind him, and now he’s waking up in the trunk of a car en route to who the fuck knows where with his hands tied behind his back.  It’s not very comfortable.  He tries to shift so his arm will stop falling asleep, but now he’s lying on his face, which is arguably worse. This is stupid.

He struggles with his legs until he gets them through the loop of his arms so his hands are in front of him.  Not that he expected any differently, but he confirms that his phone is gone from his pocket along with everything else.  It was worth a try, anyway.  He considers trying to figure out where the car is going based on when it turns, like he saw someone do on TV once, but he doesn’t know the city well enough for that.  All he can do now is wait.

Eventually, the car stops.  Someone walks around and throws the trunk open, leaving Ian squinting against the sudden light as they pull him roughly to his feet.  He doesn’t recognize where he is at all, some abandoned-looking storage facility in the middle of nowhere.  He really hopes it’s not so far in the middle of nowhere the rest of Hidden Block won’t be able to find it.  The asshole who pulled him out of the car-- a guy much tougher-looking than Ian, although admittedly that’s not a very high bar-- drags him into the building with a painful grip on his arm.  Ian stumbles after him, his stiff legs not wanting to cooperate.

He ends up sitting across from the rather young woman who seems to be in charge of this operation.  A few more intimidating asshole types are lurking around just in case he’s thinking about punching her and escaping, which, to be fair, he absolutely is.  They have an extremely one-sided conversation, because Ian is doing some last-minute practicing at keeping his mouth shut.  The woman doesn’t tell him anything he hadn’t already guessed: she or whoever she’s affiliated with wants Hidden Block secrets, and for some reason believes Ian is going to provide them.  He may or may not laugh in her face when she suggests taking the easy way and just telling what he knows now.  He’s dragged into a different room, where the not-easy way will presumably now be tried.

Based on the array of implements on the table-- some familiar, some completely unidentifiable, but all very painful-looking-- and chains hanging from the ceiling and walls, this is not a room Ian wants to be in.

“Take your jacket off,”  the woman tells him.  He looks at her, down to where his hands are still tied together, and back up, raising an eyebrow.  She sighs like she’s annoyed with him for not being a fucking wizard and cuts his hands free.  He shrugs out of his jacket and leaves it folded on the table.  It’s probably for the best anyway, he doesn’t want to get blood on it.  It  _ is _ chilly in here, though.  Abandoned storage facilities are not noted for their heating systems.  He shivers, a combination of temperature and nerves.

“And your shirt,”  she prompts, gesturing impatiently with the knife she’s holding.

“I’d… rather not?”

She doesn’t push the issue.  “Suit yourself,” she says, shrugging as she turns to leave the room.  “He’s all yours, Dimitri.”

For the hundredth time Ian considers running, but the aforementioned Dimitri is standing in the way, watching him closely.  Then the door is closed and locked and he’s missed his chance.

Ian is now eyeing up the distance between himself and the table full of very sharp things, but before he can try anything in that direction Dimitri grabs his arms and the next thing Ian knows he’s hanging by his wrists from the ceiling.  Thankfully, he’s tall enough to stand on his toes just enough to take some of the pressure off the metal biting into his wrists.  He resists the urge to try and push off the wall behind him and kick Dimitri where it hurts when he steps back.  It  _ would _ be really satisfying, but he’d still be chained up helpless in a room with him afterward, so he’d probably only make things worse.  The best option he has at this point is to try not to piss the guy off more than necessary.

Dimitri takes an unnecessarily long time musing over all the exciting sharp things at his disposal before turning back to Ian with just a normal knife.  Ian doesn’t have time to wonder why that required so much thought, because at that point Dimitri is, you know,  _ using _ the knife.  Three slashes: the first all the way down Ian’s front, then one on each side from where his arms start to where his torso ends.  He grabs Ian’s arm and twists him around for one more down his back, then releases him.  The cuts aren’t that deep, although that doesn’t mean they don’t  _ hurt, _ but his shirt is in a few pieces now.  What’s left ends up on the floor beneath him.

“Next time the boss tells you to do something, you do it,”  Dimitri says.  Wow,  _ that’s _ what that was about?  What a petty asshole.

Ian would shrug, but that’s sort of impossible right now.  “Sure, if she stops telling me to do things I don’t want to do.”  The look on Dimitri’s face tells him that was the wrong answer.  Ian needs to have a talk with his mouth about remembering to consult with his brain before saying things.

Dimitri looks angry at first, but then he smiles, which is actually worse.  “You’ll be a fun one to break.”

The torture session begins in earnest, and Ian is soon covered in cuts and bruises on every inch of exposed skin.  He bites the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out, and tastes blood.  He hopes his dizziness is from having his head slammed against the wall a few times and not blood loss, although actually he’s not sure if that would be better or worse.  His arms have gone completely numb, which at least means they don’t hurt.

After a few hours that feel like a few days, Ian is exhausted.  He doesn’t notice Dimitri stepping away to pack up his equipment onto one of those rolling janitor cart things until he turns back to Ian and releases him.  Ian falls to the floor, and by the time he looks up he’s alone.

He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but eventually, he wakes up.  The room is completely dark with the door closed and lights off, and it takes Ian a second to remember where he is.  His memories come flooding back along with the pain as soon as he tries to move.  His arms are functional again, so that’s nice, at least.  He stands up and immediately almost falls again, catching himself on the table.  Oh,  _ right, _ here’s his jacket.  Getting his arms into the sleeves doesn’t sound fun, so he just pulls it around his shoulders like a blanket and curls up in the corner to hopefully get as much sleeping and recovery in as he can.  It’s impossible to find a position that doesn’t hurt some part of him, and he’s pretty sure he reopens a few cuts trying, but the nice thing about being this fucked up is that he’s too tired to care.

When he wakes up again, it’s to a bruising kick in the ribs.  He curls into a ball instinctively, coughing, then struggles into a sitting-up position.  Dimitri is standing over him.  He grabs Ian’s arm and hauls him to his feet.  Ian realizes he’s about to chain him up again and tries to get away, but Dimitri would be able to overpower him even if Ian  _ wasn’t _ weakened and panicking.

Nothing has even been done to him yet today, and he’s already in pretty bad shape.  Having his arms wrenched above his head pulls at all those little and not-as-little cuts from yesterday, not to mention his arms themselves, which are  _ screaming. _  His entire body shakes as he tries to hold himself up and give his wrists some relief.  All this before Dimitri has even touched him.  Ian can tell this is going to be a bad day.

Surprisingly, before anything else can happen, the woman walks in.

“I was hoping to catch you before you got started,”  she says, as casually as if she’s talking about missing the beginning of a movie,  “but this works.”  She walks over to address Ian.  “So, have you got anything to say yet?”

“Yeah,”  Ian says, forcing his voice steady.  “Fuck you.”  She glares at him, and he returns her gaze defiantly.

“Why are you  _ doing _ this to yourself, Ian?”  she asks, exasperated.  “For the sake of people you don’t even  _ like? _ ”

Ian honestly has no idea why people seem to think he dislikes his friends.  Well, okay, maybe he  _ is _ constantly saying he hates them, but  _ still. _  He sees no reason to correct her, though.  “However I feel about them, I’m still never selling them out to  _ you.” _

She looks at him for a second.  “You’re an idiot.  This misguided loyalty of yours will only get you more unnecessary pain.  But I suppose you know that already.  Carry on.”  She turns on her heel and walks out, leaving Dimitri to get on with things.

He approaches Ian holding… well,  _ something. _  Ian isn’t actually sure what it is.  It kind of looks like a curling iron without the bit to hold the hair in place, and it’s plugged into the wall like one too.  When it’s a few inches away he can feel intense heat radiating from it.  He tries to twist his body away, but Dimitri pins him against the wall with a hand around his neck.  A second later, the air is filled with screams and the smell of burning flesh.

Ian passes out at some point.  When he’s slapped back into consciousness, his throat is raw and it feels like half his chest is on fire.  He looks down.  His eyes don’t want to focus for some reason, but he makes out the blurry shape of the Hidden Block logo burned right over his heart like a brand, the same place the patch is on his jacket.  Dimitri comes back with a knife and carves a deep X through the logo with agonizing slowness and the air of an artist adding the final touch to a painting.  Ian tries to suppress a scream for the sake of his painfully dry throat and ends up sobbing instead.  Dimitri takes a step back and seems proud of his handiwork.  Then he turns and walks out of the room, leaving Ian still chained up with blood dripping from him onto the floor, exhausted and crying.

An hour passes.  Ian runs out of tears.  He wonders if anyone will come back, or if they’ve just given up on him and left him to die.  It hasn’t been the entire day yet, has it?  He honestly has no idea.  His chest still hurts like hell.  If he twists around, he can press himself against the cold wall for a bit of relief.  The movement causes the skin on his wrists to finally break, blood running down his arms, but he doesn’t really care.  It’s not like he can feel it anyway.

Eventually, he hears footsteps outside the door.  He lets himself fall back to face the door.  Dimitri is back.  Apparently he went to get lunch, because he has a soda now.  Ian is painfully aware of the fact he’s had nothing to drink in the past two days.

Dimitri sees him staring.  “Oh, are you thirsty?”  He walks over to Ian, enjoying the moment of hope in his eyes before he dumps the drink out on the floor in front of him.  “Then maybe you should fucking cooperate.”

A single tear slips down Ian’s face.  “Guess I’ll just die here,”  he whispers.

He doesn’t know if Dimitri even heard him.  He’s turned back to the table, apparently eager to get back to work.  “I’m told it would be dangerous for you to lose much more blood,”  he says offhandedly,  “but there’s still this.”  He holds up the curling iron-looking thing.  Ian shudders and tries to press himself back into the wall.  “Judging from your reaction, I’m going to enjoy this.”

It lasts  _ hours. _  Dimitri slowly traces patterns with the hot iron all over Ian’s back, front, arms, even his face and neck.  Ian doesn’t stop screaming,  _ can’t _ stop screaming, the entire time.  He can barely get a breath in.  His lungs ache.  When it finally ends, he’s already unconscious.  He wakes up when he hits the ground after being released.

He tries to get up, but his arms don’t even want to move, much less support any of his weight.  Somehow he manages to get sort of upright and half-crawls to the corner where his jacket is.  He doesn’t actually use it for its intended purpose, because as soft as it is, it still feels like sandpaper on his much-abused skin.  He just holds it for comfort while pressing as much of his body as possible against the walls, and eventually falls into an uneasy sleep.

At the sound of the door opening, he jolts awake, clutching his jacket.  His head is fuzzy and pounding at the same time.  He half-remembers a dream-- a nightmare, really-- where his friends were in here being tortured instead of him, and he knew it was because he failed to protect them.  He repeats to himself the decision he already made: he’ll die before he does anything to hurt them.  It’s a different feeling when there’s a good chance that it will actually happen.

Someone approaches his corner.  He flinches, expecting to be hit, but it’s the woman.  She kneels in front of Ian and puts a cup to his lips.  The water is gone in about five seconds, although a good bit of it ends up spilled in his haste.

“Can’t have you dying on us,”  she says before leaving.  Ian is asleep before she’s even closed the door.

A few hours later, he’s woken again by his own shivering.  Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to get himself as cold as possible, in retrospect.  Other than that he feels a lot better.  Like, he can actually move his arms enough to pull his jacket around himself and try to warm up a little.  It really fucking hurts, just like moving at all really fucking hurts, but it’s physically possible.  Hell, he could probably even stand up, if he wanted to, which he doesn’t.  All he wants to do is remain unconscious in this corner for as long as it’s possible to do so without actually dying.

Before he can get on with that, though, he hears someone walking towards his room.  He groans.  Can’t they at least let him  _ sleep? _  He may be feeling better than before, but that’s a  _ really low bar to set. _  He doesn’t think he can handle another day like that.  At least it seems to be someone in heels: the woman, by herself.  She doesn’t seem the type to get her hands dirty.

At this point, unfortunately, Ian has an idea.

He pushes himself to his feet, ignoring the protests from literally every part of his body, and struggles with his jacket until he’s actually wearing it, likewise.  He leans on the table for a moment to rest, then positions himself near the door.  As soon as the woman opens it, he pushes past her and runs.  Well, kind of runs.  He does his best.  Anyway, he doesn’t even make it to the end of the hall before Dimitri turns the corner from the other direction and grabs him.

“And here I was going to go easy on you today,”  he says, lifting Ian off the ground by his throat like he weighs nothing.  Struggling to breathe, Ian barely registers that they’re moving until they get to an unfamiliar room and Dimitri throws him to the ground.  He lies there a moment, coughing and trying to get his breath back, until he’s pulled upright again.  Dimitri forces him onto a table and straps him down.  Ian is torn between asking what the hell he’s doing and really not wanting to find out.

The woman walks into the room to find out what’s going on and sees Dimitri pulling off Ian’s shoes and socks, while Ian himself looks equal parts confused and terrified.  She hums approvingly and leans against the wall to watch.

Dimitri pulls his tools out, businesslike, and gets to work.  He uses the curling iron thing first, rolling it slowly over the bottoms of Ian’s feet for uniform burning.  When he puts it away Ian thinks he’s done.  That would certainly be bad enough on its own.  Halfway through Ian’s voice gave out and he can’t even scream anymore.  But no-- now Dimitri sets about carving a checkerboard pattern on top of the burned area, blood dripping onto the floor.  The pain radiates all the way up his legs until half of his body is in agony (the other half, of course, hurt  _ before _ this started.)  Finally, mercifully, Ian blacks out.

He doesn’t wake up when it ends, or when Dimitri unstraps him from the table and slaps him around a bit.  A  _ lot _ of things don’t wake him up.  What finally brings him back to a reality he’d rather stay out of is having icy water poured over his head.  He returns to consciousness  _ very _ quickly at that, coughing up water and shivering.  He sits up and remembers where he is, another thing he didn’t want to do.

_ “Finally,” _  Dimitri says.  “Come on, let’s get back to your room so we can get started.”

Ian’s voice is barely there, almost a whisper.  “Get…  _ started?” _  Haven’t they  _ been _ getting started?

“Yes,”  Dimitri says impatiently.  “Might run a little long today after being delayed by your little stunt, but what can you do, right?  It’ll take even longer if you don’t get moving.”

Ian swallows and tries to stand, but collapses immediately to his knees with a sharp cry.

“Get  _ up. _ ”  When Ian doesn’t move, Dimitri kicks him hard in the side.  “I don’t have all fucking day, start walking.”

“I  _ can’t, _ ”  Ian says pleadingly.

“You can’t what?  Stop being a whiny, pathetic little bitch?”

Ian is crying.  He can’t even respond to the insult; he  _ is _ kind of pathetic right now, and he hates it.  “I can’t walk.   _ Please.” _

“Well, whose fault is that?”

“I don’t know,”  Ian snaps,  “who’s the asshole that sliced up my feet so I can’t even stand?”  That was stupid.  That was a stupid thing to say.  Why did he say that?

Dimitri laughs.  Yeah, Ian definitely fucked up.  “Sure you can.”  He picks Ian up and sets him on his feet with one hand, holding a knife to his throat with the other.  Ian sways, every bit of concentration devoted to staying upright and not passing out.  If he falls, he’ll be killed.  Dimitri twists his arms together behind his back to both hold him up and force him to move.  He leaves bloody footprints all the way back to his room.

Dimitri finally releases Ian once the door is locked behind them.  He immediately collapses onto the floor, unable to go any further, not really even sure how he got this far.  His consciousness is fading in and out.  Vaguely he feels himself being lifted and chained, hears his own voice saying things like “no” and “please” over and over.  The “session” lasts all day and well into the night.  Ian is punched, kicked and hit with a fucking baseball bat, burned, possibly even electrocuted at one point.  Nothing that would draw blood, though, which Ian is almost disappointed by.  At least if he bleeds out he won’t be in this hell anymore.  His arms feel like they’re going to tear right off his body up until the point where he can’t feel them at all anymore, but it’s not like he can try to stand.  Letting himself hang there is infinitely less painful.  

Ian is finally unchained sometime around midnight.  He’s out like a light as soon as he hits the ground.  When the woman comes in to give him water he realizes he’s been sleeping in his own blood, which, gross, but also he doesn’t have the strength to move so it’s just going to keep happening.  After she leaves he doesn’t go back to sleep immediately and instead has time to think, which, also gross.

He can’t believe he fucked up so badly.  Why did he think he could just run and get away, especially in that state?  Thanks to that stupid not-even-really-a-plan, escaping is now a physical impossibility.  It will be okay, he tells himself.  His friends must be looking for him by now.  All he has to do is survive a few more days, just hold on until they find him.  He’ll be fine.

 

It’s a week after Ian disappears before the rest of Hidden Block notices he’s gone.  After all, it’s pretty normal for him to vanish for a couple days without telling anyone where he’s gone when he gets in a mood.  Usually he’s just in his apartment, playing video games or watching TV and ignoring the outside world.  After five days with not so much as a text, though, they start to worry and go over there to look for him.

The place looks abandoned.  Which, to be fair, is pretty much the usual state of Ian’s apartment.  But normally he doesn’t have a week’s worth of junk mail piled up, or gross old food sitting out.  Something is definitely off here.  Jimmy decides to try texting him again.

__

_ pretzel man: Haven’t heard from you in a while.  Everything okay, dude? _

 

A few minutes later he gets a response.

 

_ human shrug emoji: I’m fine, don’t worry.  Some stuff came up suddenly and I’ve been really busy. _

 

Well, that’s sketch as hell.  How “busy” do you have to be to fall off the face of the earth for a week and leave your apartment this gross?  Surely if something that urgent had come up he would’ve told someone about it.

 

_ pretzel man: That sucks :( does that mean we’re not on for tonight anymore? _

 

He waits for the answer.  Ten minutes, twenty, the better part of an hour.  What the hell is going on with Ian?

 

The door to Ian’s room opens.  He stays where he is, curled in a weak, shivering ball in the corner.  Maybe if he ignores it hard enough it won’t be real.

In spite of his attempts to bargain with reality, Dimitri walks over and pulls him off the floor.   _ Fuck. _  Ian nearly falls as standing reopens the cuts on his feet for the hundredth fucking time.  He has to stay upright, though.  Dimitri tends to take collapsing as an invitation to kick him until he gets up.  Attempts to explain how counterproductive that approach is have not exactly gone over well.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t get chained up.  The jury’s still out on whether having to walk to another room is actually better, but it’s different, at least.  The woman is seated at a table with an empty seat across from her which Ian is pushed into, and  _ holy shit she has food. _  Ian suddenly remembers the fact that he hasn’t eaten in a week.  He sort of forgot, what with the fact that he’s been either unconscious or being tortured that entire time.  He realizes she’s been talking to him.

“What?”

She sighs.  “I  _ said, _ I have a question for you.  If you answer it without lying, you get to eat.”

He should tell her to fuck off.  Say he won’t play her stupid game, and if she wants him alive she’ll have to feed him at some point anyway.  He opens his mouth with every intention of having some fucking self-control.  “...What’s the question?”  Damn it, Ian.

She squints at his phone, which he didn’t notice she was holding until just now.  “Who’s…  _ Pretzel Man?” _

__ Ian shouldn’t say anything.  Any information about his friends could be dangerous-- yeah, it’s just his dumb contact name, but she might find something in their conversation.  Even though Jimmy only ever texts him stupid photoshopped pictures, like the 23 (he’s counted) that are just hearts around him and Caddy arguing.  Anyway, like he was saying, he should keep quiet.  “That’s…”  That’s none of your fucking business, lady.  “That’s Jimmy.”   _ For fuck’s sake, Ian. _

She pushes the tray of food across the table to him.  It’s just a shitty cheap TV dinner, but Ian honestly could not give less of a fuck.  He wolfs it down like he’s starving, which, to be fair, he is.  He only gets a few bites before she pulls it away again.  He hates how obviously desperate he is.

Ian’s phone has just vibrated in her hand.  “Were you planning to do something with Jimmy tonight?”

“Yeah,”  he answers before he can stop himself.  “It’s Friday, right?  We have game night every week.”  He remembers a few seconds later that Jimmy cancelled for this week last time they saw each other.  That is, uh, he definitely withheld that information from her on purpose?  Yes, that.

She lets him finish eating without any more interruptions.  It’s not enough, of course, but at least it proves she’s still interested in his continued survival.  That’s… something.

 

Jimmy’s phone  _ finally _ buzzes.  Took Ian long enough to type that one-sentence response.

 

_ human shrug emoji: Yeah, sorry.  I know game night is our thing. :( _

 

Okay, A of all, he’s been holding off on a final judgement until now but that is  _ not _ how Ian types.  That’s not how  _ any human being under the age of 40 _ types.  That is  _ weird and unsettling. _  Second of B, they were  _ already _ off for tonight, because Jimmy has a  _ date _ tonight.  Or at least, he was going to before all this started happening.  So either Ian is being weird and passive-aggressive at him for no reason by pretending to forget and then cancel himself, or…

“Guys, I think Ian is in trouble.”

The entirety of Hidden Block crowds around his phone.  The general agreement is that this is indeed extremely sketch.

“It looks like somebody else is using his phone, pretending to be him,”  Luke says, frowning at the screen.  “But why?”

Caddy chimes in, patting Luke on the back with an air of “he’s kinda oblivious sometimes but we love him.”  “Come on, Luke.  If they have his phone, that means they have  _ him, _ and probably they don’t want us to know about it.”  Then he thinks about the implications of what he just said for a second and shudders.

“Hey, it’s okay,”  Jeff says.  “We’ll get him back and make them pay.”

“That sounds nice,”  Caddy agrees.

Jimmy and Luke exchange a knowing look behind his back, but now is probably not the best time to bring up the obvious crush Caddy insists on denying.

“I can try and triangulate where his phone is,”  Wallid offers.  “It might take awhile to get access to the phone company’s database, but I can do it.”

“Is that… you know,  _ legal?” _  Luke asks, looking concerned.  Everyone turns to him incredulously.  He bursts out laughing.  “Nah, I’m just messing with you.”

Not everyone is dealing with the stress quite so well.  Caddy pauses his pacing around the apartment to ask,  “What does  _ awhile _ mean?”

“...Few days?”  Wallid winces.  He knows that’s not a very good answer.

Caddy curses and resumes pacing, even more frustrated than before.  Luke tries to console him.  “Don’t worry.  Ian may be built like a twig, but really he’s like… like those really bendy willow things.  He doesn’t break so easy.  Whatever is going on, wherever he is, he can handle it.”

Caddy sighs, slightly less frantic than he was.  “You’re right.”

 

Ian doesn’t think he can handle much more of this.  He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t even still be alive at this point if not for the small hope that Jimmy somehow figured out he needs help.  No one else has apparently even  _ tried _ to contact him.  If Ian thought he’d get an easier day after cooperating for that little conversation, he was very much wrong.  He’d rather not make himself remember any specifics, but there’s not an inch of his body that isn’t in agony and he’s pretty sure he has some cracked ribs.  The day must be over by now.  There is no possible way the day is not over, and yet he’s still hanging here.  Maybe he’s just misjudged the time.  He holds onto that idea until the woman comes in with water for him, and he realizes he’s not getting any real rest tonight.  He tries to wait until she’s gone to break down crying.

Somehow, he ends up sleeping a little.  He wakes up screaming, white-hot metal pressed into the hollow of his neck.  No warning at all.  He wouldn’t be surprised if Dimitri was intentionally quiet coming in just so he could do that.  Is it even morning yet?

In an attempt to distract himself, Ian wonders what the hell the deal is with dialing the torture up to 11 when it finally looked like he was actually going to be helpful.  Maybe they took it as a sign that he’s close to breaking.  He really fucking hopes that isn’t true.

The pain this morning seems to be mostly focused on the really sensitive spots of his face and throat.  He doesn’t exactly black out, just… exists in a grey haze where everything is muffled and hurts less.  It’s a nice place, honestly.  It would be even nicer if whoever that is would stop screaming and let Ian take a nap.

He wakes up.  He doesn’t remember how he stopped being awake in the first place, but he wakes up.  The woman is standing in front of him, telling him something he’s too far away to understand.  He blinks a few times and makes his eyes focus on her.

“Be reasonable,”  she says, placing a cool hand on his face almost soothingly.  “We both know you can’t take another day of this.”

Forcing himself back into awareness invited the pain back as well.  A choked sob escapes him.  “Make it stop hurting,”  he begs her.

“I will,”  she says, smiling encouragingly.  “Just have a little talk with me first, okay?”

Ian pauses.  He can’t remember  _ why, _ but a voice in the back of his mind is saying that talking to her is the one thing he must not do under any circumstances.  “I… I can’t.”  His voice cracks.  “Anything else.  I’ll do anything else you want,  _ please. _ ”

She removes her hand, and a second later slaps him hard across the face.  She’s only about as strong as Ian normally is, but at this point he would probably cry if you poked him hard enough.  The room spins around him, and he feels like vomiting, except his stomach is empty.  He keeps his head down and waits for things to stop moving.  By the time he looks up again, he’s alone.  His face still burns-- well,  _ all _ of him still burns, but especially where she hit him.  Maybe he’ll just go back to sleep.  He might not wake up again, but honestly, he doesn’t really want to.  In all his recent experience, being awake fucking  _ sucks. _

 

Hidden Block pulls up to the building they’ve traced Ian’s phone to with no actual plan, which is just as well, because nobody would have followed it anyway.  “Maybe we should stay together,”  Jimmy starts to say, but before he can even finish his sentence everyone else is gone except Wallid, who was driving.  They look at each other, shrug and run after the others.

This is a huge building with entirely too many rooms.  Nobody needs this many rooms.  It’s just wasteful.  After running through the halls for a few minutes, opening doors at random, most of them are lost and separated from everyone else.  It’s starting to feel like a trap.  But no, nothing happens, it’s just a really needlessly big building.

It’s Caddy who finally finds the right room, because of course it is.  He stops for a moment to catch his breath, but forgets to breathe altogether when he hears sound from behind a door.  A second later he presses himself flat against the wall just in time to avoid being seen by the man who walks out, slamming the door behind himself and locking it from the outside.  As soon as the man turns the corner, Caddy opens the door with shaking hands to investigate.

Oh,  _ fuck. _

__ Ian is the first thing he sees when he walks into the room.  It’s hard to miss him, what with how he’s chained up in the middle of the opposite wall, hanging by his arms.  He flinches when the light from the hall hits him.  Caddy lets the door shut behind him with a soft  _ click _ and approaches Ian.

Ian looks like a broken fucking mess.  Even before getting over to him it’s obvious how badly he’s shaking.  His hair is matted with his own dried blood, and every inch of visible skin is a rainbow of bruises, burns and knife slashes.  He doesn’t seem to recognize Caddy at first, cringing back at his approach and trying to protect his face.  Tears spill from his eyes as a litany of pleas spills from his mouth.

“No, please, no,”  Ian says, voice small and broken.  “No more.  Leave me alone,  _ please, _ just let me fucking  _ die already.” _

“You aren’t going to die,”  Caddy says firmly.  “I’m getting you out of here.”  God, he might start crying himself soon, it’s breaking his fucking heart to see Ian like this.  He’s just barely tall enough to reach up and free him.  Ian falls to the ground hard and doesn’t move for a few seconds, unless shivering counts as movement.  Caddy reaches for his shoulder and Ian flinches away.

“Please,”  he whispers again, doing his best to curl into a ball despite the reluctance of his body to move.

“It’s okay,”  Caddy says softly.  “You’re okay now, Moosey, I won’t let them hurt you any more.”

Ian finally opens his eyes, although they still won’t focus on the man in front of him.  “...James?  Is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Promise you’re not a hallucination?”

“If I was a hallucination you’d still be hanging from the ceiling,”  Caddy points out.  “But we need to get out of here.”  He slips his arm carefully under both of Ian’s and tries to help him stand.  As soon as Ian puts any weight on his feet, though, he hisses in pain and falls back to the floor.  When Caddy looks down and sees why, his blood boils.

“Because I tried to escape,”  Ian says quietly.

“Yup, I’m officially going to kill them,”  Caddy announces.  “Anyone who hurt you and  _ especially _ whoever did this.  But first I’m going to get you away from this fucking place.”  He spots Ian’s jacket in the corner of the room, but it’s filthy and bloodstained and doesn’t belong anywhere near open wounds.  Instead he takes his own off and wraps it around Ian’s shoulders like a blanket, then picks him up as gently as possible and stands, cradling him to his chest.  (It’s so  _ easy, _ he’s way too light, shit, that can’t possibly be okay.)  Ian’s shivering calms down considerably as he finally gets warm for the first time in a little over a week.

They’re just about to leave when the door slams open again.  Dimitri.  Caddy has no idea who this guy is, but from the way Ian tries to curl up and hide his face in Caddy’s shirt with a terrified whimper he can make an educated guess.  Fuck this guy.  He shifts Ian’s weight in order to reach for his gun, but Dimitri has his own out first and aims it right at Ian.  Caddy freezes.

“Put him down slowly, along with your weapon, and you both might live to see tomorrow,”  Dimitri orders.  Caddy obeys, because what choice does he have?

Ian’s hands are apparently starting to work again.  He clutches weakly at Caddy’s shirt when he’s bent down.  “Don’t leave me here,”  he pleads, and Caddy has to fight hard to keep his tears securely in his eyes where they belong.  He finds the least fucked-up spot on Ian’s face and kisses it gently.  He has no idea why he did that, but Ian probably won’t remember this even if they don’t both die here, so it’s fine.

He straightens up and looks Dimitri in the eyes.  “Well?  What do you want?”  His tone burns with anger.

Dimitri is about to answer, looking smug, when a shot rings out.  He sways for a moment, then falls to the ground dead.  Ian fires a few more times into his corpse for good measure, hands shaking.  “Fuckin’ asshole.”  The adrenaline and fear drain out of him at the same time and he’s just exhausted and hurting.  He drops the gun.

Caddy sends a quick text to everyone else letting them know he has Ian.  Wallid says he’s already found Ian’s phone, so all that’s left to do is meet back outside.  For his part, Ian is still sort of afraid to believe any of this until he’s safely out of the building.

“Wait,”  Ian says as Caddy is about to pick him up again.  “Get my jacket.”

Caddy gives him a confused look.  “It’s  _ ruined. _  You can have mine, really.”

“I still want it,”  he insists.  Caddy isn’t about to argue with someone who almost died this recently, even though normally he’d jump at the opportunity to shout at each other over something utterly pointless.  He gets Ian’s jacket.

 

They may get lost a few times on the way out of the building.  It’s difficult to navigate even without having to dodge random security guards.  Ian isn’t very helpful.  To be fair, he’s also not very aware of what’s happening around him.  He’s drifting in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware it’s not quite safe to pass out yet but also not entirely able to stop himself.

Eventually, though, they do find the exit.  Everyone else is already there and runs to meet them, crowding around Caddy as he carries Ian out of the building.  Ian looks in bad enough shape that questions about what’s happened to him are postponed until he can actually answer them.  Caddy lays him across the back seat of the car, then climbs in himself and sits on the floor.  They take him home.

Ian falls asleep in the car.  He’s half-aware of being carried up the stairs and into his apartment.  (They considered just taking him to the fucking hospital, but between the fact that he’s kind of a wanted criminal and their unwillingness to let him out of their sight, back to his apartment it is.)  Gentle hands clean and bandage his injuries, which is to say, pretty much his entire body.  He fights a little on that-- he knows his friends are only helping, but he’s too tired for rationality and being moved hurts.  Soup is involved at some point.  (Jeff has made way too much soup, even for six people.  That’s what you do when you want someone to get better, right?)  Also, painkillers, obviously.  Then he’s finally in bed and can stop pretending to be awake.

For the next few days, he just sleeps.  Even when he wakes up for pain medicine and Jeff pushing more soup at him, he isn’t really there mentally, just going through the necessary motions while still half-asleep.  Caddy stations himself in a chair by his bed and refuses to leave his side the entire time.  At one point Ian finds himself awake enough to form complex thoughts.  First he wonders why he hurts all over.  Then he remembers the last two weeks, and wonders why it doesn’t hurt  _ more. _  He cracks his eyes open hesitantly, and is relieved beyond words to be looking at his own bedroom ceiling.  That was enough consciousness for one day, he decides, and closes his eyes again.

Finally, after  _ entirely too long in his worried friends’ opinion, _ he wakes up for real.  He tries to turn onto his side and groans, because  _ ow. _  Caddy was starting to nod off, but shakes himself into alertness.  “Morning,”  he says, even though it’s like 10 PM.

“How… long was I out?”  Ian’s voice comes out a little rough from sleeping so long.

Caddy tries to remember.  It’s sort of blurred together for him.  Maybe he should have been sleeping a little more himself.  “Four days?”  he guesses.

“Yeah, that sounds about right,”  Luke agrees from the doorway, having heard them talking.  “Good to see you’re finally up, buddy.”

Ian looks at himself, clearly horizontal.  “No I’m not.”

Luke laughs.  “You’re right, I guess that’s true.”  He walks off, still chuckling.

Silence settles over the room for a few seconds, and Ian starts to drift off again.  Caddy is still hovering awkwardly, desperate to feel useful.  “Can I get you anything?  Or do anything for you, or… whatever?”

Before Ian can say anything, a sudden chill makes him shiver and gives his response for him.

“I’ll go get another blanket,”  Caddy says, turning to leave.

“No, don’t,”  Ian mumbles sleepily, pulling ineffectually at Caddy’s sleeve.  “Just… c’mere.”

Caddy flushes a bit when he realizes Ian wants him to get in bed with him, and immediately feels silly for it.  Ian is only using him for his body heat, after all.  He just happened to be the closest person.  “I don’t want to accidentally hurt you,”  he says while stepping out of his shoes and climbing awkwardly into the bed.

“Whatever,”  Ian says.  “Won’t feel it anyway.  That’s what the drugs are for.”  He nestles into Caddy’s arms and smiles.  “Much better.”  He’s out like a light almost immediately, and Caddy isn’t far behind.

A few hours later they’re both startled awake by the sound of Ian screaming.  Apparently being able to think properly again includes dreams, and unfortunately, memories.  He wakes up panicked, choking back sobs.  Caddy pulls him closer and strokes his hair soothingly.  “Shh, shh, it’s okay.  You’re safe.”  Ian buries his face in the other man’s shirt, still trembling.  “I’ve got you.”  He kisses the top of Ian’s head, softly enough that Ian probably doesn’t notice.  Within a few minutes he’s mostly calmed down.

“I don’t want to fall asleep again,”  Ian admits, muffled.  “I don’t want another dream like that.”

“You can’t even keep your eyes open,”  Caddy points out.  “How about this, if it looks like you’re dreaming again I’ll wake you up.”

“Okay,”  he whispers, already half gone.

Caddy tries to stay alert, he really does.  But he’s been too worried to sleep well lately and this whole situation is so cozy and nice and he ends up drifting off a bit.  The next thing he knows, he’s failed his task: Ian is twitching in his sleep, looking very distressed.  He shakes his shoulder gently to wake him up.

“No,”  Ian mumbles, taking absolutely ages to come back from sleep.  “No, stop,  _ please, just leave--” _  He opens his eyes.  “Oh, thank god, it was another dream,”  he sighs, pressing himself as close to Caddy as humanly possible.

“I woke you up as soon as I noticed,”  Caddy says, wrapping his arms around Ian and feeling guilty about the fact that he could have done so sooner if he hadn’t fallen asleep himself.

“I’m so glad you did, it was  _ awful,” _  Ian says, really not helping with the guilt thing.  “Worse than the shit that really happened, maybe.”   _ How the fuck?? _  “It-- it was-- they--”  His voice wavers like he’s about to cry.

“You don’t have to tell me if it’s too hard.”  Caddy plays with Ian’s hair absentmindedly.  So soft.  He hopes this is as soothing for Ian as it is for him.

“No, I want to,”  Ian insists, then pauses.  “Because it was about you.”

That was… not what Caddy was expecting to hear.  “What?”

Ian takes a deep, steadying breath.  “The dream.  You came to save me, just like you did in real life, but, well, it went to shit.  Dimitri-- the one who-- the one I  _ shot,” _  Ian says, as much to remind himself the man is dead as to explain who he was,  “he caught you and--”  he swallows--  “and he made me watch what he did to you.  He was slowly killing you in front of me, James.”

“Oh,”  Caddy says, voice distant.  “Oh.”  It didn’t really sink in for him until now that, yeah, actually, that  _ could easily have fucking happened. _

“Yeah.”  Ian laughs shakily and hides his face in Caddy’s chest again.  “It… it wasn’t fun.”

“I can imagine.”  He really can imagine how that feels, actually.  He imagines it’s pretty similar to opening that door and not being able to tell at first glance if Ian was even alive, to finding him barely holding on and then almost losing him again to the fucker who nearly killed him and would likely have finished him off.  “But it wasn’t real,”  he says firmly.  “He didn’t hurt me.  And he won’t ever hurt  _ you _ again either.  Nobody will, if I-- the rest of us have anything to say about it.”

“Good,”  Ian says, nuzzling into Caddy’s neck.  It must be the drugs making him so cuddly.  He’s not normally anywhere near this level of affectionate and clingy even with people he  _ doesn’t _ claim to hate.

They lie together in silence for a few minutes, slowly getting sleepy again.  Then the door opens and Jimmy comes in to wake Ian up for food and medicine.

“Uh… Am I interrupting something?”

Caddy flushes and helplessly says,  “He was cold, it wasn’t my idea,”  without removing his arms from around Ian.

Ian grumbles about having to move when he was all settled in and comfortable and also moving hurts kind of a lot, but eventually lets his friends help him sit up.  Afterwards he’s even more weird and loopy and even less able to stay awake.  Caddy was planning to get up for a while, but Ian cuddles up to him and falls asleep again before he can leave.  He looks to Jimmy for help, who seems to be trying not to laugh.

Jimmy takes pity on his trapped friend.  “I can stay with him for a while,”  he offers.  Caddy slips out while Jimmy takes his place, sitting next to Ian in bed with his DS playing a Pokemon game.

The movement doesn’t wake Ian, but a little later he stirs and opens his eyes, looking confused.  “Where’s Caddy?”

“He went to do some stuff,”  Jimmy responds vaguely, because he isn’t actually sure exactly what Caddy is doing right now.

Ian frowns.  “When is he coming back?”

Jimmy laughs.  “What, am I not good enough for you?”

“Well…”  Ian gestures for him to come closer, like he’s about to impart a huge secret, and drops his voice to a whisper.  “Don’t tell him, but he’s my favorite.”  Oh my god.  This is the cutest fucking thing Jimmy has ever witnessed.  “I don’t  _ really _ hate him.  But he can’t know, okay?”

“I won’t say anything,”  Jimmy promises, miming zipping his mouth shut.  He doesn’t add that he shouldn’t  _ need _ to say anything, because as far as he can tell High!Ian has been making his feelings pretty clear.  “Do you want me to go get him?”

“Yeah.”  Ian smiles at him.  “No offense, I still like you too.  Just…”

“I know, don’t worry.”  Jimmy is hardly shocked and offended to learn that Ian is not in love with him.

 

Caddy hasn’t even been out of the room half an hour when Jimmy comes looking for him.  He’s in the middle of eating a sandwich, actually.

“Ian asked for you,”  Jimmy informs him with an amused smile.  “Yes, already.  He woke up and looked at me.  ‘Hi, Jimmy,’  he did not say.  Instead he  _ frowned _ at me, I guess because I’d offended him by not being you, and the first and second things out of his mouth to me were asking where you were and when you’d be back.  Apparently you’re warmer than I am, or better at cuddling, or something.  To be fair, I guess I  _ was _ playing Pokemon.”

Caddy goes a bit red and mumbles something vague along the lines of “well, if he’s asking for me” in response, getting up and abandoning his sandwich.

Ian gives him a dumb smile when he walks back into his room.  “James,”  he greets him.  “Jamie.  Jam.”  Caddy gives him a look that says “what the fuck are you on about” and Ian laughs.  “What would you do if I call you Jam from now on?”

Caddy gets into the bed before responding, and Ian settles in against him.  “I’d give you a pass on it for now,”  he decides,  “because you are sort of high.”

“Aw.”  Ian frowns.  “I won’t, then.  It’s no fun if you don’t get mad at me.”

“Save it for later,”  Caddy suggests.  “I’ll gladly kick your ass for calling me Jam once you’ve recovered.”

Ian laughs again, presumably at the idea of Caddy kicking his ass.  Which, frankly, is a bit insulting.

“What, do you think I couldn’t do it?”

“Not with your wimpy noodle arms, dude.”

Oh,  _ that’s _ a laugh.  “You’re saying  _ I _ have noodle arms?”  Caddy wraps his hand around Ian’s own arm, demonstrating that it reaches very nearly all the way around, and raises an eyebrow.

“Hmph.”  Ian pulls his arm back.  “Well, mine aren’t normally  _ that _ bad.”

Right.  That reminder of why exactly Ian is so weak right now ruins Caddy’s mood for banter in an instant.  “Fine,”  he says, using his so-called noodle arms to hold Ian close.  “Maybe you’re right.”

“Ha,”  Ian says quietly.  Satisfied with his victory, he relaxes into Caddy’s embrace.

A few minutes later, Caddy remembers something.  “Are you still worried about having dreams?”

Ian thinks for a moment.  “Nah.  I’ll be fine; you’re here.”

Caddy doesn’t respond out loud, because he’s screaming internally a bit and is afraid it might become external if he opens his mouth.  His answer instead is just to tighten his hold on Ian protectively and kiss his hair all sneaky-like for the second time that day.  At this moment, he would fight an  _ actual _ moose to keep Ian safe.

 

If Ian is really, really physically fucked up-- and no one is about to argue with  _ that-- _ he’s almost as injured mentally.  There are a lot of things everyone learns not to do around him.  They may not understand  _ why _ all the things that upset him do, given that they’ve heard almost nothing about what happened to him back there, but he’s clearly upset, which is all the information they really need.  Jeff enters his room a little too enthusiastically, slamming the door, and Ian can’t breathe for a few seconds until Caddy helps him remember where he is.  A hand touching his face when he isn’t expecting it makes him startle awake, thinking of the woman.  Caddy is carding his fingers through Ian’s hair when he freezes, because just for a second the feeling reminded him of Dimitri getting a grip on his hair to more effectively slam his head against the wall.  He may have insisted on keeping his jacket, but for weeks he doesn’t want it around him.  When he’s sleeping, he positions himself carefully to make sure his arms won’t be trapped under him and lose circulation.

Mostly, though, he starts to return to his old self.  The day after he fully wakes up, the guys set things up in his room so they can all cram in there and play some games together.  It’s not easy to get everyone in the room at once.  They aren’t normally all in the  _ apartment _ at once.  Most of the time they take turns on “taking care of Ian” duty and go home every so often, except for Caddy, who hasn’t once left.  Anyway, Ian has a lot of fun playing Mario Kart until he gets too tired to hold the controller without his hands shaking, which is about half an hour in.

“Jaaaaames, will you help me?”  He pushes the controller at Caddy while slumping over onto his shoulder.

“And by ‘help’ I assume you mean ‘play the game for you while you shout at me for not doing it right.’  Yes, fine, I will help you.”

“Cool.”  Ian slumps the rest of the way until he’s lying down with his head in Caddy’s lap, but can still see the screen.

Caddy looks down at him.  “This is not conducive to winning at Mario Kart,”  he says, but it doesn’t sound like he minds much.  He does get annoyed when Ian, as predicted, goes into backseat driver mode and whines constantly about Caddy ruining his game, but he doesn’t have to endure it very long, as Ian soon ends up taking an unintentional nap on him.  Being tortured for ten days straight can really tire a person out, apparently.  Okay, nope, having that thought was a mistake and Caddy immediately drives right off a cliff due to not paying attention for a good five seconds, that’s fine.  The others laugh at his stupid error, but stop when they see his face.  He’s sort of forgotten about the game.  He’s just staring down at Ian sadly and brushing his hair back from his face in a repetitive motion.  Someone asks what’s wrong.  He brushes them off, saying he’s just tired, then moves Ian gently off of his lap and onto the pillow and pulls the covers up over the both of them.

“Carry on,”  he says, muffled by the blanket over his head.  “I’m just going to have a bit of a nap.”  Once he hears the game start back up, he lets himself cry, shaking silently as he buries his face in Ian’s shoulder and clings to him.  Ian stays asleep.  Unfortunately, not everyone is quite as oblivious.

Luke puts a hand on Caddy’s shoulder, making him jump slightly.  “You’re not as sneaky as you think you are, dude,”  he tells him.  “Honestly-- what’s wrong?”  Caddy turns around with tears in his eyes.  Luke sits on the bed and pulls him in for a hug.

“I just… I could’ve  _ lost _ him, you know?  He could have  _ died _ in there.”

“I know,”  Luke assures him.  “We’re  _ all _ going through this, Caddy, so you don’t have to do it alone, okay?  You can talk to us.”

Caddy wipes his eyes on his sleeve.  “Okay.  Thanks.  I actually do just want a break now, though.  I’ll be right here if you need me, two feet away under a blanket.”

“You don’t mind us being in here?  We might get kinda loud.”

“No, no, you’re good.”  He’d rather have the occasional bit of game-related yelling than complete silence.

“If you say so.”  The four members of Hidden Block still playing resume their game while Caddy goes back under the covers.

Later, while Ian is hanging out with Jeff and won’t miss him too much, Caddy goes to find Luke.  Luke was kind of expecting this, honestly.  The poor guy hasn’t given himself a break since they first found out Ian was missing.  Luke pats the spot next to him on the couch and Caddy sits down, looking at the TV without really watching it.  Eventually Luke puts an arm around his shoulders and asks,  “Is everything okay?”

Caddy sighs.  “Not really.”

“What’s up?”

“Ian.”  Well, duh.  “He’s  _ really _ not okay, Luke, they hurt him so much.  Every time I look at him I notice more shit.  He hasn’t told me what exactly happened, but he talks in his sleep sometimes and…”  He trails off, shaking his head.  “I don’t even want to think about it.  Ten fucking  _ days _ of that.  Why didn’t we notice sooner?”

“...I can’t say I haven’t thought the same thing.  I tell myself, it’s not our fault he likes to disappear without contacting anyone.  I’m not saying it’s  _ his _ fault, obviously, because that would be the shittiest thing to do ever, but it doesn’t make sense to beat ourselves up about it when nothing seemed wrong.  I don’t know if that helps.”

Caddy thinks about it.  “Yeah, I guess.  The other thing-- well, the  _ main _ other thing I’m worried about is, there were more people involved back there than just the dickbag Ian shot.  Whoever actually organized his capture is still out there, and they could come back.  I think Ian worries about it, too.  He asked me to keep my gun nearby when I’m staying with him.”

Luke is quiet for a moment.  “I agree.  That  _ is _ worrying.  I’ll see if I can find anything out.”

Just then, Jeff pokes his head out of Ian’s room.  “Sorry to call you back so soon, Caddy, but Ian doesn’t seem to agree with me that he can still sleep if you’re in a different room.”

Luke stops Caddy as he’s getting up.  “You know you’re doing a great job, right?  You’ve been so good for him.  The rest of us wish we could do half as much as you have.  Don’t forget to take a break sometimes, okay?”

Caddy smiles.  “I’ll try.”

Ian is struggling to keep his eyes open, but he doesn’t want to fall asleep alone in case of dreams.  As soon as Caddy gets back Ian relaxes into his arms with a contented sigh.  Oh  _ nooo,  _ he’s so fucking  _ cute, help. _  As he leaves, Jeff is kind of trying not to laugh at Caddy’s distressed face.

 

It’s not as easy as Luke was hoping to find the people who took Ian.  He goes to Normal Boots for help and gets yelled at for not telling them this was going on right away, of course they’d want to know, they’re  _ friends, _ what is wrong with him??  With their assistance he manages to narrow it down to a few possibilities, but then they’re stuck.  Going after all of them because fuck it, they probably deserve it for  _ something _ , is tempting, but it’s probably a bad idea to make a lot of enemies for no real reason.  He wanted to avoid this, but to figure out who it was he’ll have to ask Ian for details.

He feels even worse when he enters Ian’s room and sees how peaceful he looks, having dozed off halfway through some old show.  Caddy is half-still watching it and half-watching the light from the screen flicker over Ian’s face as he sleeps, smiling softly.  It pains Luke to disturb them, but he knocks on the door frame, looking apologetic.  “Can I talk to Ian for a minute?  Is this a bad time?”

“Well, he’s asleep,”  Caddy says,  “but he’ll probably  _ also _ be asleep any  _ other _ time you come in, so…”  He nudges Ian.  “Care to grace us with your presence in reality, Moose?  Luke wants to talk to you.”

Ian makes sleepy, whiny noises as he wakes up.  Fuck, that’s adorable, Caddy thinks.  Fuck, he’s so happy and I’m probably about to fuck it up, Luke thinks.

“Wh…?”  That’s about as far through “What’s up, Luke?” as Ian can get at this stage of consciousness.

Luke sits on the edge of the bed nearest Ian.  “Well, if you think you’re awake enough, I was hoping to ask you some stuff.  I’m looking for the people who kidnapped you so we can take them out, but…”  He winces.  “I kind of need to know at least  _ something _ about them to do that, and you’re the only one with any knowledge.  I wish there was another way, I know you don’t want to think about it, but you gotta tell me.”

Ian tenses a bit and looks down, thinking.

“You don’t  _ have _ to,”  Caddy corrects, slipping an arm around him protectively.  What is he protecting him from?  Luke?  He doesn’t know.  “It would just be helpful.”

“I’ll try,”  Ian decides.  He situates himself facing Luke, then thinks better of it and turns back around.  It’s easier if he can hide his face.  Caddy gives Luke a  _ look _ that says this had better be worth it.  He can feel how hard Ian’s heart is beating as he searches for something to tell about.

Luke tries to help him out.  “Are there any specific people you can describe?”

Yes, there are.  He doesn’t  _ want _ to, but he can.  “Well, Dimitri, but he’s dead now.”

“You made well sure of that,”  Caddy agrees.

“And… the woman, I guess.”

“The woman?  You don’t have any kind of name for her, then?”  Luke is a bit disappointed by that.

“No, sorry.  I can… sort of remember what she looked like?  Blonde, about our age.  Her… her nails were painted…”  Ian trails off, forces the memories of the woman’s hands touching him in a mockery of comfort out of his head.  As if she thought he’d forget she was the one who ordered this done to him.  To her credit, sometimes that was actually true.  Sometimes he couldn’t remember  _ anything. _

__ He pulls himself back to the present.  Luke is asking him something else.

“...not sure that will be enough to go on.  What about the other one?  Dimitri?  I know you said you killed him, but he could still be a lead.”

Instead of answering,  Ian buries his face in Caddy’s chest.  Thinking about the woman was bad enough, and she didn’t even actually hurt him.  Caddy hugs him and glares at Luke, who quickly backtracks.

“Sorry,”  Luke says.  “If it will upset you--”

“No.”  Ian is muffled, but determined.  “I can do it.”  He’s not sure that he  _ can _ do it, actually, at least not in any way that would actually be helpful, but he refuses to give up now.  “I’ll just tell you what happened.”

Luke exchanges a worried look with Caddy, but says,  “If you think it will help, go ahead.”

It may or may not help Luke, but it really,  _ really _ doesn’t help Ian.  He tries hard to remember any details that might be useful.  By the time he gets through the first day, Caddy is rubbing Ian’s back while he tries to pull himself together, clutching fistfuls of Caddy’s shirt.  This is actually an improvement over a few seconds before, when Ian was just staring at nothing, stiff and unresponsive.

“You don’t have to keep going,”  Caddy reminds him.  “You’ve been so much help already.”

Ian shakes his head.  “I-- I want to.  I want you to know.”  Oh.

“Okay.  We’ll listen, then.”

He goes on, telling them about the second day of his captivity.  (Days before they noticed he was gone, a voice in the back of Caddy’s head reminds him.)  He recounts his conversation with the woman to the best of his ability, and how stupid it is when people think he doesn’t care about his friends.  They know he likes them, right, even Caddy?  They assure him that yes, they know.  After this they’d be pretty stupid not to.

Then Ian gets to the bad part of the day.  Well, no, it’s all the bad part, so… the even more bad part.  Not the  _ worst _ part, but still really fucking shitty.  The part where he got the Hidden Block logo spitefully branded onto him and then crossed out.  He can’t get the words out very well, so before anyone can stop him he pulls the bandages off his chest and traces the shape with a shaky finger, wincing at how raw it still is.  His audience is suitably appalled.  Luke is torn between shocked that he actually just did that, annoyed about having to redo the bandages and quietly  _ really fucking angry _ at the fact that this happened to his friend.  He leaves to find the box of supplies.  Ian immediately realizes that was dumb to do and now everything is rubbing against his still-healing wounds when he moves and it  _ sucks. _  Not to mention that the cold on his bare skin makes him feel pretty exposed and vulnerable.  Caddy puts a hand on top of his-- right, Caddy is still here, he’s not in any danger.  

A moment later Luke comes back too, bringing fresh bandages and Jimmy.  Jimmy didn’t get a good look at Ian when he first got home, and now he stops in the doorway, eyes wide and hand over his mouth.  He wouldn’t have expected someone that battered to  _ survive, _ and he blinks back tears at the realization of how close they came to losing Ian.  He also gets himself moving again to help Luke with the bandages.  He ends up staying in the room, because it looks like more emotional support might be needed and also he kind of wants to know what happened.

As soon as Ian is all bandaged up again, he leans into Caddy, who wraps the blankets around Ian along with his arms.

“Do you want to take a break?”

“No,”  Ian says, even though he does.  “I’d rather just get this over with.”

He gets through the rest of that day, somehow, which is also a pretty accurate description of how the day actually went.  He sort of laughs at himself for thinking he’d been left to die, then realizes it’s not actually that funny when he sees his friends’ faces.  “Sorry, it’s just… I thought it was  _ over _ after less than two days?”  Shit, now they look  _ more _ upset.  “Never mind.”  Then there’s the rest of the torture, Dimitri being an asshole, his resolution to die rather than tell those people anything.

“Ian, what the fuck.”  It’s Luke who says this, but the sentiment is shared by everyone in the room.  “If something like this ever happens again-- even though it  _ won’t _ \-- just give them what they want, okay?  A little, anyway.  Enough to protect yourself.  We can  _ deal _ with some random assholes learning where we live or whatever.  Know what we can’t deal with?   _ You dying. _ ”  He looks around the room.  “This goes for anyone: if you ever need to, tell them anything you can think of about me.  I won’t be upset or anything.  No harm done, ‘cause they’ll be dead as soon as we find you, right?”  The others nod, feeling like they should respond somehow to that little speech.

“...Anyway,”  Ian continues.  “After that, uh… I tried to escape.”

Caddy, the only one who knows what’s coming, preemptively goes into comforting mode.

“You can probably guess it didn’t work.  Dimitri caught me, and…”  He trails off,  _ really _ not wanting to describe that.  “Everyone here but Jimmy has seen the aftermath.  Can’t run away if I can’t walk, right?”  He laughs bitterly.  Jimmy looks confused until Luke leans over and whispers something to him.  He pales slightly at just the mental image.  “Except I found out I  _ could _ walk, actually, because he forced me to, all the way back to the other room so he could start in on my regularly scheduled torture, as if I wasn’t already about to pass out from either pain or blood loss.”  He remembers the original reason for him to tell this story and adds,  “The woman was there for that.  She didn’t actually do anything, though, just watched.”

Not even Caddy knew about most of that.  He holds Ian as tight as he can, to the point where it almost hurts him, as much for his own benefit as Ian’s.  Ian does need it, though.  Remembering that fucked him up a fair bit.  Eyes tightly closed, he focuses on physical feelings to ground himself in the present: clean bandages on his skin, the weight of the blankets, Caddy’s arms around him while stroking his hair.  He doesn’t realize how long it’s been since he spoke until Jimmy asks if he’s okay.  Which, no, obviously not.

Instead of making himself describe  _ everything _ that happened that entire week, especially since it was honestly a bit repetitive after the first couple of days, Ian skips to the end of the week when Jimmy texted him.  This part doesn’t seem that bad to talk about, until he remembers how it was one of his weakest moments and he was just lucky she didn’t press her advantage.  On the other hand, he kind of wants to start giggling at the overly serious asking of the question “who is pretzel man” despite the fact that it was sort of a life and death situation at the time.

“Wait,”  Jimmy interrupts after hearing Ian’s side of their conversation.  “Are you saying the only reason that lady didn’t know I cancelled that day is because you  _ forgot? _  Like, if you’d remembered that, I might not have known something was wrong?  I just…”  He gets on the bed to hug Ian on the side he’s not already being held from.  “I’m fucked up about how easily we could have not found you in time.”

“Me too,”  is Ian’s muffled reply.  He’s enjoying being in the middle of this double-hug thing, though.  Is this how Paul feels all the time?  It’s so  _ safe. _

He’d like to tell about the last few days before being rescued, but has to admit he doesn’t really  _ remember _ most of that time period, and what memories he does have are fuzzy.  He tells what he can.  He didn’t really think he was going to survive at that point.  He knows they stopped letting him down to sleep.  The woman was there at some point.  Luke wants to know about the woman, so he tries to remember that.  Right.  “She asked me one more time.  Acted like she was there to help me.  I guess she thought I was too far gone to know the difference.  And, well, I  _ was, _ just… not far gone enough to forget not to talk.  I said I couldn’t tell her anything, still begging her to make the pain stop, and she hit me.”

Ian curls further into Caddy, who is as comforting as he knows how to be and whispers reassurances.  It wasn’t easy to immerse himself in that memory enough to remember all those details, or to pull himself back to reality again after.  His voice started sounding dead halfway through.

“You’re almost done, Moose, you’re doing so well,”  Caddy tells him.  “And you  _ did _ so well.  They never broke you, not really.  Luke was right.  You’re stronger than you look.”

“Thanks… I think?”  Ian uncurls a little, takes a deep breath and goes into the home stretch.  “You found me pretty soon after that.  They never fully broke me, like you said, but right then they were really fucking close.  I wouldn’t talk, but when I could speak at all I was begging for death.  When you came in I didn’t recognize you.  Even after you got me down I thought you were there to hurt me.  As soon as I realized it was you, I just thought… it’s over now.  I did it.  I still might die, but at least I lived to see you again.”

“I remember,”  Caddy says.  “I’ve never been more scared in my life than when that Dimitri asshole came back.   _ You _ seemed so scared.  I could only think that if he got you again, he’d kill you.”

“Yeah, I was fucking terrified.  And then I thought he was going to hurt  _ you _ first, kill you just to make sure I didn’t have any hope left.  That’s when I shot him.  I have  _ no _ idea how I made that, I was shaking so much just from the effort of picking your gun up.”

“You were shaking so much even  _ without _ the effort.”

“That too,”  Ian concedes.  “And then it really was over.  You got me out of there and the next thing I remember is being back here.”  All that talking was really tiring.  He might just take advantage of this extremely safe-feeling double-hug and go back to sleep.

“Holy shit,”  Luke breathes.  “That was…”  He trails off.   _ “Fucking hell, Ian. _ ”

“You’re not wrong,”  Ian replies, muffled.

“I’m severely tempted to never let you out of my sight again.”

“Did I help, though?”

Oh, right.  Luke sort of forgot about that for a while.  He thinks over everything Ian said about the woman.  “Yeah, buddy, you helped a  _ lot. _  I think I can find her now.”  Actually he didn’t remember a whole lot of useful things about her, but he  _ can _ find her now, and it was so difficult for Ian that it should count as a lot of help.

“Good.”  Satisfied, Ian makes himself even more comfortable than he already was and falls asleep.  He’ll probably have nightmares now, but it’s whatever.  He was having those  _ anyway, _ and besides, now there are  _ two _ people to wake him up from them, because Jimmy has been informed he’s not allowed to leave.  Jimmy is fine with this, because it’s not like he has anything better to do that he wasn’t going to procrastinate the hell out of regardless.  He’s not gonna pass up a  _ cuddle pile. _

Not to mention that this particular cuddle pile comes with the bonus of watching Caddy make heart-eyes at the sleeping Ian, who occasionally wakes up for a moment and returns them while Caddy is looking away innocently.  It’s like they’ve both forgotten he’s even there.

“Just kiss already,”  Jimmy finally says.  He would have told them to get a room, except this  _ is _ Ian’s room.  Caddy goes red and looks away while muttering something about having no idea what Jimmy is talking about.  He’s interrupted a moment later.  It’s difficult to keep arguing with Ian’s mouth on his.

Jimmy makes a quiet high-pitched noise meaning “oh no that’s too cute” as Ian pulls back from the brief kiss and ducks his head.  Caddy, blushing furiously, attempts to hide his face in Ian’s hair and glare at Jimmy at the same time.  It doesn’t come off as very intimidating.

“Wow,”  Ian says, smiling.  “That worked even better than expected.  Maybe I’ll do that  _ every _ time I want to shut you up.”

“ _ You _ shut up,”  comes the muffled reply.

Ian looks up.  “Make me.”  Caddy leans in and kisses him again.

 

Luke, meanwhile, has just succeeded in locating the woman who kidnapped Ian.  He’s more than a little puzzled to receive a text from Jimmy containing nothing but about 30 of the letter A.  He shakes his head at it, figuring he’ll get some kind of explanation when he gets back, and finishes writing down what he’s found.

When he walks back into Ian’s room, the atmosphere seems a little different.  He can’t figure out why until he notices how Ian and Caddy are leaning their foreheads together, staring into each other’s eyes.  His own eyes go wide and he looks to Jimmy for confirmation of what he’s just put together, who nods excitedly.

It’s a shame to interrupt, but he does anyway.  “So,”  he says with a slight grin,  “who wants to help me plan to  _fuck some people up?_

**Author's Note:**

> this shouldve been multiple chapters probably but nah. i just pasted straight from google docs and ao3 is laggy as hell on my phone so i dont want to go through and check how broken the paragraphs are for fear of messing something else up
> 
> why yes i did tease a continuation that may or may not ever be written
> 
> comments much appreciated give me The Validation


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